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What does “Overwritten Files” mean?
When certain crimes occur, surveillance footage can be critical to investigation and evidence. What does it mean when such video has been "overwritten"? Overwriting involves recording or copying new data onto existing data, thereby replacing it. When data is overwritten, the new information is recorded on top of the old. Unused clusters in the file system are used to record the new information. This happens as users continue to use the disk for various operations, with new files written over the old ones.
Is it possible to recover overwritten CCTV files?
Many people wonder: Can surveillance camera videos be recovered? Is it possible to recover overwritten surveillance or DVR footage?
You can easily recover deleted CCTV files. However, the chances of recovering overwritten CCTV DVR videos are very slim, as they get covered by other videos and erased from the hard drive. Even if the hard drive is somewhat damaged, you can still recover the videos that existed on it.
But if the drive has not been fully overwritten, it may be possible to recover video from a CCTV camera's hard drive.
3 Ways to Recover Lost CCTV Files
In the following content, we will introduce you to two methods to recover deleted videos from CCTV/DVR hard drive or SD card.
Method 1: Recover Overwritten Files with CCTV Recovery Software
If you accidentally delete CCTV footage, you can use the Data Recovery Wizard to retrieve lost CCTV/DVR data. It supports recovering DVR data from hard drives, SD cards, USB devices, and other storage media. Follow this guide to recover deleted video recordings from a CCTV/DVR hard drive or SD card.
Step 1: Run the tool – Data Recovery Wizard, and select the location or device where your lost or deleted videos were. Click on “Scan” to look for the lost videos.
Step 2: After the scan is complete, select "Videos" from the sidebar on the left. Go to "Lost" or "All" to find your required video. Select the found video and click "Preview".
Step 3: Choose the video files you want to recover. Click “Recover” to save them to another secure location on your computer or an external storage device.
- Tip
- If your CCTV hard drive is not fully overwritten, you can also try the Data Recovery tool. As file recovery from overwritten data is more complicated, we cannot guarantee a 100% success rate. Therefore, you can first download the trial version to have a try. If you find your lost files in the scan result, you can purchase this software and save them to a secure location. If not, sorry this tool may not be able to help you.
Method 2: Recover Overwritten CCTV Footage with Data Recovery Services
In addition to professional data recovery software, Tools also offers expert manual data recovery services for complex cases. Tools provides data recovery services for HDD recovery, external drive recovery, RAID, and RAW recovery.
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Get personalized consultation with Tools Data Recovery specialists and benefit from manual recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we offer the following:
- Repair of damaged RAID structures, unbootable Windows OS, and corrupted virtual disk files
- Recovery/repair of lost partitions and repartitioned drives
- Reformatting hard drives and fixing RAW drives (BitLocker encrypted drives)
- Conversion of disks protected by GPT back to their original state
Method 3: Recover Deleted CCTV Footage from Backup
If you have backed up your surveillance videos to another hard drive or SD card, you can easily recover CCTV files from the backup.
Step 1: Locate and open the folder where your video backups are saved.
Step 2. Find the CCTV or DVR hard drive/SD card from where the video was deleted or lost.
Step 3. Copy the downloaded video and save it back to your hard drive/SD card.
Extra Hint: How to Backup Videos and CCTV Files
The primary solution to avoid losing your footage and the hassle that comes with it is to make backups. You can copy your videos to another drive or upload them to Google Drive or OneDrive. If you want an automatic backup solution, you might want to try out Todo Backup. This backup and recovery software lets you easily back up your important files and folders to an external hard drive or other drives.
Conclusions
You will learn how to perform CCTV/DVR data recovery under different circumstances. If you don't have a backup, you can choose to use professional data recovery software or services based on your needs.